


Drowning Lessons

by InLoveAndSqualor



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-07-22
Updated: 2012-09-13
Packaged: 2017-11-10 11:43:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/465896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InLoveAndSqualor/pseuds/InLoveAndSqualor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gerard and Frank have come to lead their own separate lives now. But they cling desperately to the idea that they can still, in some way, have one together...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. C1 Drowning Lessons

_You say you love me..._

_But that love... It's just not enough is it?_

_I say I love you but it's only words..._

_Our words make us feel like we're not apart completely._

_But they're only words and they only ever will be while I'm not with you..._

_And sometimes they help and sometimes they make me sick inside, right down to the pit of my stomach._

_Because I know they're only words and I know I can never actually be with you..._

***

Frank stared with detachment over the dinner table, with the vacant stare of someone who dreamt of not being there in that moment at all.

'And what's stopping me? What's stopping us?' He entertained briefly; not allowing himself to think too deeply on it, hazard upon the actual answer to his question. Even if it was staring him straight in the face, even if it was taking all his energy not to know it.

Because the answer would spoil the illusion... The illusion that he and Gerard had built together.

Frank sighed lightly and pushed a few peas dejectedly, with his fork, from one side of his plate to the other; watching them roll clumsily, scattering in their own choice of direction.

Lying in the dark, at night, he could forget, forget himself, his life. But in these, the most mundane of life's moments, he looked to Gerard as a fantasy to escape into. When they were together it was wild and exciting, it was arcing electrical currents and a forest fire of burning trees, hurricanes and crashing waves and all contained in two bodies clashing in the heat of night. And then, just as wonderfully, so often it was soft and caring and sweet.

And wasn't that just their relationship? It was the sweet frosting, the sugar-coating, of love. It was all of the joy and tenderness, the quiet excitement, the screaming lust. And it was none of the dull foundations that should have stood beneath, the things a real relationship is built upon. The realities, the work and the hardship that it takes.

Frank had never sat at a table with Gerard night after night having to think of something to say, pretending to take interest in the answers that came back his way. And that's what made everything in this all the worse. Because it taunted Frank that deep down all the things he loved about his time with Gerard, being with him in their stolen moments, was based on a lie. Based on the lie that they both believed, that if they could actually do it, be with each other together day after day, it could be the same, they could feel the same.

Would he lose the joy that just being in Gerard's company could always bring? Would they sit silently across from one another lost as to what to say? And the risk of it was almost as unbearable as the idea that Frank could never be with him...

It was what scared Frank more than anything; that if you were with anyone for long enough you'd lose all those things that you had loved about them, perhaps worse, they'd become the things you'd grow to hate.

Frank's phone vibrated dully in his jeans pocket.

"Nice dinner..." Frank mumbled quietly, rising from the table, smiling calmly, screaming desperately inside.

***

Gerard kissed his baby boy on the head, pulling the bed sheets gently up around his neck. His son had been the blessing that in many ways he never could have dreamed of... And yet the dreams he'd had to give up on, that he'd gladly given up on, for himself. 

He didn't resent him or regret him but he felt the duty of being a father weigh down, impossibly heavy, upon his shoulders every time he looked down at that angelic face.

Gerard brushed the stray hairs from his son's eyes and grazed the backs of his fingers tenderly down his rose dappled cheek.

He wanted to give this kid the world, even if that meant giving up being with the one man that made his turn. 

Gerard walked quietly away, snapping off the lights as he backed silently out the door. Closing it, he took a deep calm, cleansing, breath and made his way down the shadow littered hall; collecting his favourite, battered, jacket on his way out.

"I gotta go practice..." Gerard called out numbly towards the direction of the lounge, not waiting for an answer as he headed out the door.

***

Frank sunk down, conflicted, into the soft mattress of the bed in his tiny motel room. He was a few blocks from his apartment yet he felt worlds away there. Worlds away from her, worlds away from everything Frank had and the stinging reality of what really could be.

He sighed looking at his watch. He saw that Gerard was as late as ever and consequently Frank's thoughts returned to times when he'd been left waiting all goddamn night, until he fell asleep, wrapped in hurt and rejection, lying curled on top of the sheets.

And although he told himself time after time that Gerard had his life, his responsibilities; he couldn't help resenting that so much of this was on his terms. 

And maybe just for once he'd like to feel like it was Gerard who needed desperately to see him, who would drop everything to sit and watch, lazily, his smile. 

He knew Gerard was trying to juggle it all. But was it wrong that Frank wanted to be the one and only thing that Gerard couldn't bear to drop? 

He felt like he was always wanting more, love always left him wanting more.

'And why doesn't the thought of my girlfriend stop me, the thought of his family?' Frank despaired, letting his head fall into his hands.

A faint rap of knuckles on the motels door brought Frank back to the cool reality of the room.

He pulled himself up off of the bed; feeling a smile, knowing that it might be Gerard, crawl across his face like an invasion. 

Hand resting on the latch, he forced his lips into relaxed nonchalance. Somehow it was too honest, too dangerous to throw out his joy and excitement to a waiting audience... Even Gerard.... Especially Gerard...

***

Gerard waited with an air of urgency on his every limb, in his every inch, for Frank to open the door. Somehow he knew he didn't want Frank to see him like that as he slipped on a cooler facade just in time to watch the door swing smoothly open in front of him.

His friend was there in the doorway of the room, a casual smile splashed across his lips, that widened and deepened irrepressibly when his eyes met Gerard's and lingered there.

And Gerard had to redefine his meaning of cool as he smiled back and made his way, silently, past him and into the room. 

***

Frank sighed against the lips pressed to his, lips that he could already feel were bracing to leave him.

He waited for the apologies, the 'I've got to get going's, the 'you know I want to stay's like a condemned man scratching the days into the concrete walls of his cell. All the while asking himself why this all had to be so inevitable. Why did they have to recite the same old lines? Play their parts so perfectly time after torturous time?

Trapped in some Shakespearean tragedy Frank silently listened as the inevitability of Gerard's words began and, with gentile savagery, engulfed him.

And he felt so selfish in these moments, so guilty just for having feelings, for wanting someone so badly even if it felt so wrong to desire him at all. 

And did Gerard feel this too? Even with that stupid fake smile plastered all over his face dutifully.

But Frank returns it back robotically, not to hurt him, not to shatter their illusions. And the lie of that smile was almost as painful as the act of them parting yet again.

And he knows that he can never say what's always there on his lips, that him leaving, going back to his family, his life, no matter Gerard's reasons, it made Frank feel less than worthless, every time it hurt like hell. Because it was too selfish, it felt too wrong to put it into words.

So Frank just smiles as Gerard leans down over him and kisses him chastely, on the lips, goodbye.

***


	2. C2 Drowning Lessons

Gerard stood outside the motel and stuffed a cigarette angrily into his mouth, felt an awful seething tension simmering wildly under his surface, threatening to explode out in his every movement.

He always felt like this when he left Frank, felt like he wanted to burst out into a desperate run or scream and scream until his lungs would fail and just wouldn't let him anymore. But he didn't. He never did. He would just stand and ripple somewhere below the surface and then he'd start his slow and reluctant walk home.

Lighting his cigarette Gerard glanced up at the vast cool expanse of the nights sky, bright specks of stars dancing, flickering and winking through the clouds. Looking at them he felt none of the freedom he knew they'd once told him he had, these days looking at them he felt like he was drowning.

Gerard walked on, the cool bite of the nights breeze willing him to pull his jacket around himself, felt it tousle its cold fingers wilfully through his hair. And knew with every step he took that he was walking away from something wildly important, that with every step he was letting another tiny part of himself die.

***

Frank pulled on his jeans numbly and grabbed his cigarettes from his jacket that lay slung over the chair by the bed. Claiming a lone cigarette from the packet and throwing the rest on to the crumpled sheets, he headed towards the rooms balcony doors.

Gerard's lips still ghosting kisses down his spine he pulled them open and let the nights air wash over him. Only for a moment did it feel cleansing before a hundred wrenching truths surfaced. Then after he felt the very opposite of clean.

Frank lit up and took a deep grateful drag, all the while burrowing his eyes down into the sidewalk stretching out below, anything to avoid the taunting gallery of glittering stars above his head, that danced between the clouds and knew nothing of the misery of being there on earth below them.

***

_In the forgiving darkness of night we say 'I love you', we say it in the shadows because that feels safe, in that blackness we could be in another world almost. You and me we could be anywhere else at all..._

_We say 'I love you' so often that, when I know we'll leave and return to other's waiting arms, it's starting to mean nothing, it's starting to become an awful black ugly joke between us both..._

***

Frank wordlessly nodded the barman over.

"Yeah... Same again," he sighed down to the dark grained wood of the bar that he rested his elbows listlessly on.

On heading home from the motel he'd only made it as far as the dilapidated looking bar on the corner; its scrawled neon sign that should have shone out its name proudly, flickered in fast sinister intervals down over the entrance.

Frank watched the barman refill his glass carelessly, so that the whiskey hit the bottom and leapt up wildly in the glass.

Gerard's cool smile snapped into his mind as Frank pulled the glass towards himself. Taking a burning gulp he swallowed down the taunting image of it.

Solace was so hard to find in the bottom of a glass and memories and truths are only ever temporarily drowned.

He didn't know exactly why he had felt like he couldn't go home. But in him somewhere, he knew walking through that door would end it, it would be the true end of his night with Gerard. And although Gerard was gone, was most likely at home now, already forgetting the finer details of their latest night together. To Frank returning home would be the death of it all and right now he just couldn't stand that.

And he wondered, did Gerard feel that way? Did he have that same stinging reluctance as he made his way back to his life?

Taking another heady gulp, hissing through his teeth at the taste, he imagined that it was different for Gerard, because really without having to have ever said it, talk it through, it was Gerard who would keep them apart. Gerard was the one who had made the decision not to leave his family and in turn Frank had stayed in his relationship, as if he too was making that same decision to do the right thing and stay with a woman who loved him, who'd done nothing wrong.

At first he'd felt it was like a stalemate, like two people waiting to see who would jump first. But now Frank knew the truth, Gerard was never going to take the leap. Frank was just hanging on to what he had now, because he couldn't have Gerard really, and truly he didn't want anything or anyone else. But if he stayed in this uncomfortable limbo he could lie to the world and to Gerard that his life wasn't on hold, that he wasn't just waiting for a moment that he knew would never come. Staying in his relationship was just a flimsy way of showing Gerard that he had a life of his own too.

Frank finished the last of his drink, enjoyed the warmth that tracked through him, the haziness that invaded him along with it.

Mutely Frank motioned the barman over with one hand and slid his glass away from himself and over the bar.

His glass full again Frank pulled it back towards himself and cradled it in numb fingers with his thoughts spinning sickeningly in his head.

As he took a heady gulp the ghost of Gerard in that motel room hours ago ran his fingers tenderly down the side of Frank's face. As the strong liquor burnt at his throat and stirred up a faint nausea, he felt hands reaching out to him from the past, felt Gerard run them down his heaving chest, and felt the hot damp kisses of a moment that now felt like years ago surface again and impart their tender touches.

Frank shook himself bitterly and downed the rest of his drink in one reluctant gulp.

Taunting memories of lust and of tenderness still hanging in the air Frank stood on unsteady feet and readied himself to flee them.

He threw down a handful of notes on the bar and nodded sadly at the barman, knowing that in the hours he had been there, he had shared with that man his private despair.

Shakily Frank made his way out into the night, pulling his cigarettes from his jacket and lighting one flanked by the cool breeze of the late hours.

His phone vibrated, against his hip, from his jeans pocket. He didn't bother to pull it out and check it. He knew who it would be and it wouldn't be Gerard. 

Numbed by alcohol, the slight breeze felt strange and not quite real as it brushed across his skin.

Frank made his reluctant and unsteady way home wondering if he'd have to explain his sorry state for yet another useless time.

***

Back at home Gerard clutched his phone in one hand, with a half smoked cigarette balanced loosely in the other. He pressed the backspace dejectedly, deleting the sixth message he'd written and subsequently rejected on the verge of sending. Finally with reticent fingers he typed 'I miss you' and hit send.

***


End file.
